How the San Mateo Rotary Foundation Boosted Donations by 30% with 4aGoodCause

One of the most notable things about the San Mateo Rotary Foundation and the difference it’s making in its local community is that there are no paid staff.

That means fundraising and event management needs to be simplified, reliable, and easy — really easy — for volunteers to run.

📊 San Mateo Rotary Foundation + 4aGC At a Glance

Read the full case study below for all the good stuff, but here’s a quick look at what we’ll cover.

• 💰 Total Raised: $80,000+ annually (up from $60,000)
• 📈 Approximately a 30% increase in net fundraising since switching from ClubRunner to 4aGC
• 🥇 New Donors Acquired: Fun run event resulted in “bonus” donations
• 🔁 Monthly Givers Added: Many donors now opt for installment or recurring gifts
• 👥 Volunteer-based: The entire fundraising program is run by volunteers—no paid staff

Our team sat down with Jeff Lowenstein, former treasurer of the San Mateo Rotary Foundation, current treasurer of the club’s Rotary Haciendas, Inc. initiative, and passionate volunteer (on top of his day job as a CEO).

“4aGoodCause definitely lowers the barriers for donating,” Jeff told me, and his team saw increased revenue in the first year of using the platform.

We wanted to hear about the foundation’s switch to 4aGC and how it multiplied their team’s fundraising efforts, especially for small-to-midsize nonprofit organizations that run on the generosity of volunteers.

You can listen to Jeff’s whole interview here with Amanda Johnson of the 4aGC team, or read through the case study below:

How does the San Mateo Rotary Foundation carry out successful fundraising with a volunteer-based team?

The Mission

The San Mateo Rotary Foundation is the fundraising arm of the Rotary Club of San Mateo, a chapter of the global Rotary International network.

Since its founding, the club has been a champion of “service above self,” supporting local youth and seniors.

Every initiative of the foundation — including funding scholarships for students from eighth grade to college, affordable senior housing via their Rotary Haciendas project, and community grants — is carried out by volunteers of the Rotary Club of San Mateo.

Club members and volunteers are passionate about bettering the lives of those in their community.

From awarding over $130,000 in annual scholarships to providing affordable housing for seniors in their area, the Foundation is a pillar of community care in San Mateo.

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The Challenge

Before switching to 4aGoodCause, San Mateo Rotary relied on ClubRunner and a basic Authorize.net checkout setup.

As Jeff explained, “I found with our members it’s not that they don’t donate because they don’t want to, they just don’t donate because they’ve forgotten. Or they got an email and they forgot to click on the link… I believe if you make [giving] easy for people, they will do it.”

The foundation’s prior system didn’t offer the flexibility, storytelling capability, or mobile-friendliness they needed to scale fundraising efforts over time easily.

They also needed a platform where any core volunteer could jump in and create fundraising pages as needed.

But their existing tools were clunky, not goal-oriented, and didn’t support key features like mobile payments, text to donate, or donation tracking via an organized donor CRM.

The Solution

Enter 4aGoodCause. With a suggestion from our partners at Authorize.net, San Mateo Rotary made the leap and hasn’t looked back.

📚Learn more: Connect your Authorize.net account easily with 4aGoodCause

“We saw a difference in year one,” Jeff shared, “We’ve been working with 4aGoodCause for about four to five years. In year one—our very first campaign—you could immediately see how much easier it was for people to use.”

“We added pre-populated giving amounts, and since we’re a club that meets weekly for lunch, I’d announce the campaign during meetings. With a QR code on the table, members could donate right then and there as I was speaking. It made giving so much more effective.”

The QR code on the lunch table was a game-changer for collecting donations easily.

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“The other ways we were collecting donations weren’t mobile friendly. The mobile-friendliness of 4aGoodCause has changed the game. People don’t have to go back to a computer or open a browser—they can donate right from their phone. It’s just a couple of clicks, especially now with Apple and Google Pay. That ease makes all the difference. People will donate when it’s that simple.”

📚Read more: 10 Places to Put a Link to your Online Donation Page

In addition to mobile-friendly donations, they’ve tapped into other features like:

• Custom giving levels and recurring donation options
• Real-time goal tracking and donor transparency
• Multi-user access for volunteers to co-manage campaigns
• Sponsor and donor segmentation for events like the Fun Run

Below, here’s a clip of Jeff detailing what the team was hoping to improve about their fundraising, along with the exciting, unexpected results.

The Results

In addition to soliciting an annual push for the Scholarship Fund, the Rotary Foundation hosts an annual fun-run to fundraise for that same need.

But they ran into an unexpected surprise — and unexpected revenue — after switching to 4aGC.

“One of the biggest surprises with our fun run event was how many participants added a donation when registering. It was like finding extra money—we didn’t expect it. 4aGoodCause made it easy to support both runners and sponsors with dedicated pages for each.”

Every year, the Rotary Foundation secures sponsors for the fun run, and working with 4aGC made it possible to easily create a separate donation page for sponsors.

But they soon found that runners wanted to donate on top of their event registration fee, too. Which was “found money,” as Jeff put it. “It was a surprise how many people that registered added donations. That was incredible.”

After partnering with 4aGoodCause, San Mateo Rotary Foundation now nets close to $80,000 across their fundraising efforts—a 30% increase over previous years.

“Our target was always at least to $60,000,” Jeff explained, “And I think now we’re getting upwards of almost $80,000.”

With 4aGC, the San Mateo Rotary Foundation has also:

• Made it easier for donors to give in installments or monthly
• Seen surprise generosity: fun run participants often donate extra
• Reduced overhead on fees: donors cover processing fees via a friendly opt-in
• Kept campaigns accessible to volunteers (no paid staff needed!)

Another big, unexpected win? The ability for donors to check a box and cover their own processing fees.

“A lot of people choose to do it, which means we’re actually netting more from each donation. 4aGoodCause presents these options—like making an extra gift or covering fees—as a gentle ask. If someone wants to do it, that’s great. If they don’t, that’s fine too.”

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Since the foundation has exceeded its fundraising goals the last few years, the extra goes to the fund’s endowment.

As Jeff shared, “Everybody always asks me, ‘How can we increase the money we do for scholarship?’ I said, that’s easy…. When we overshoot our goals, we have to take less from our endowment, which gives us a growing investment. And then we can have a bigger number when we budget the next year.”

And that keeps this entirely-volunteer-based foundation’s giving sustainable for the long-run.

In this clip from our interview, Jeff explains how exceeding their goals assists with sustainable giving for the organization.

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Top fundraising tips from the San Mateo Rotary Foundation

If you want to run a successful campaign similar to the San Mateo Rotary Foundation, we pulled a couple overall tips from Jeff during our talk with him.

Here are a few standout takeaways:

• Experiment with event registration pages to discover “found money.” By adding a soft ask for donations on their event registration form, they ended up collecting donations above the fun run registration fees.
• Incorporate digital giving into in-person events. The Rotary Club hosts plenty of luncheons in their community, and by easily including QR codes on the table, people can sign up to donate right away, rather than needing a separate reminder email or call later.
• Use pre-populated giving amounts. Jeff found that setting default donation levels helped make choices easier and reduced donor hesitation.

Speaking of pre-populated giving amounts, in 2026, San Mateo Rotary will debut a new “Fan Club”—a Fund-a-Need-style option letting donors cover specific student expenses like books or housing.

It’s their next step to even deeper impact, and donors will get to choose needs they’re passionate about supporting from a menu of options.

Here’s why the San Mateo Rotary Foundation exceeded their set fundraising goals

“I call Rotary my hobby,” Jeff said, “I don’t do sail boats or woodworking or anything like that. I found that Rotary is my hobby that I enjoy doing, and that’s why I dedicate a lot of time to it.”

The Rotary’s mission is service above self, and Jeff shared that his club takes that mission seriously through improving and lifting up everyone in our community.

And the dedication of the San Mateo Rotary Club’s members and volunteers shows.

In increasing their annual donations by 30%, the Rotary is able to do more good—raising more while stressing less with an all-volunteer initiative.

“I’d say actually it’s fun to do the fundraising with [4aGoodcause]. Before, it was more of a chore,” Jeff explained.

While the 4aGC team knows that the San Mateo Rotary Foundation’s hard work is what made this huge success possible, we’re proud our platform supported Jeff and the Rotary Club’s efforts to exceed their fundraising goals. 

Jeff shared that 4aGC helped his team in the following ways:

1. Ease of use.
2. Mobile-friendly experience.
3. Data visibility.
4. Emotional connection.
5. Flexible donation forms.

“[Using 4aGC] has also increased the amount that they donate because they feel so good about donating,” Jeff explained. “They feel safe, secure, and that [their donation] is going into the right place… And getting to the right program.”

If you’re ready to launch high-performing campaigns like the San Mateo Rotary Foundation team, schedule a demo of 4aGoodCause and we’ll show you how to do it.